The vultures will be hovering again soon enough, as Bill Shorten begins to stumble

They have become accustomed to kings becoming carrion. In the past 20 years Paul Keating, Kim Beazley, Simon Crean, Mark Latham, Beazley again, John Howard, Brendan Nelson, Malcolm Turnbull, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Rudd again, and now Tony Abbott have all been felled, a procession of change, on average, every 20 months, for 20 years. It shows no sign of slowing.

In this context, the Canning by-election could have been called the Cunning by-election. It gave a clear, vindicating victory for Malcolm Turnbull's brazen, lightning coup.

So now the vultures will soon be hovering over the obvious loser, Bill Shorten, who made a serious blunder last week that puts him on carrion watch.

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Illustration: Michael Mucci

Having hovered over Abbott for months, the vultures will be riding the political thermals and circling in the sky, watching for Shorten to falter.

He just became much more vulnerable. He has never been popular in the opinion polls. He has rarely been impressive in parliament. He was especially unimpressive in the three sitting days leading up to the Canning by-election.

On Tuesday, in his first question to the new Prime Minister, Shorten finished with this: "Will the Prime Minister change the substance of this government or is it just about its style?" He concluded his second question with, "Will the Prime Minister change the substance of the government or just the style?"

Then came Labor's Mark Butler: "How can Australians believe a word this Prime Minister says?" Next was Jason Clare: "Is the Prime Minister finally satisfied that, after all these years, he has poleaxed and humiliated the member for Warringah?"

Next was Chris Bowen, asking Turnbull about "a new dirty deal with the National Party."

The spectacle was unedifying. The signal was wrong. The public is sick of smearing. The tone and the tactic made Turnbull appear statesmanlike, in contrast to Shorten. He also had an effortless retort to every insult: under the cabinet system he is bound by the government's decisions.

The next day's questions were equally unedifying. Shorten, asking about climate change policy, ended with, "Has the Prime Minister sold out his principles to achieve his personal ambition? "

Next, Mark Butler: "When exactly did the Prime Minister sell out his beliefs on climate change?" Then Kate Ellis: "Has the Prime Minister abandoned his own reforms and is this the price that he had to pay to become Prime Minister?"

Then Shorten: "Will the Minister for Defence still be the Minister for Defence this time next week?" Then Shorten again, on marriage equality: "Why did the Prime Minister tell the Australian people one thing only a month ago, but is now doing exactly the opposite?" Then Shorten a fourth time: "What other government policy is the Prime Minister willing to sell out to appease his personal ambition?"

The next day, Thursday, was also devoid of substance and completely insular. Shorten's first question: "Even though there is a new Liberal leader, it is the same policies, the same chaos and the same division?"

Next, Tony Burke: "What action will the Prime Minister take to address this cabinet leak, which was aimed directly at him?" Then Catherine King: "Isn't it clear that the Prime Minister will sell out anything and any government policy for his own ambition?" Then Shorten: "Can the Prime Minister confirm he supports the same old broken promises and cuts?"

This fusillade of sneering, led by the man who helped depose both the Labor prime ministers he served under, flagged Labor's tactics for the next year. They will keep it nasty and personal.

This is risky, given the public mood. It compounds the risk Shorten has taken in committing Labor to opposing the Free Trade Agreement with China, Australia's largest trading partner.

If Labor, acting at the behest of the narrow self-interest of several unions, were to succeed in derailing, or even merely delaying this pact, the ramifications would be significant.

If the free trade pact, arduously negotiated for years, the most liberal China has ever committed to, were to be rebuffed by a Labor government, the blowback would last for years.

The tactic thus represents an enormous sovereign risk to Australia's reputation with China. In interviews I've done with senior Chinese officials in Beijing, and with two of China's ambassadors to Canberra, it hammered home to me that the government in Beijing regards reliability, continuity and trust as central to the bilateral relationship.

Labor's policy has to be a bluff. It can't be more than electoral scare-mongering and debt-repayment to certain unions. And the union that is leading, and financing, the attack on China is the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union.

Eventually, the public is going to wake up to the recklessness of the CFMEU. In the past two years it has racked up $20 million in fines, legal bills and damages awarded. More than 60 of its officials are facing litigation.

Twenty million dollars in costs and endless litigation would bankrupt any other union, but the CFMEU has the largest slush fund, built up by deals and collusion that the royal commission into union corruption has been methodically uncovering.

Last Monday, while the political class was fixated on the Liberal leadership coup, the royal commission heard evidence that a senior CFMEU official, Dave Hanna, had a house built for him by a major corporation, Mirvac, which buried the cost in its budget.

The commission is building a large mosaic of such dealings, which is why Labor and the unions were so desperate to smear the head of the commission, former high court judge Dyson Heydon, along with the man who appointed him, Tony Abbott.

If the public ever connects the dots, Shorten will become political carrion. He has 10 months to navigate the risks before the 2016 election campaign. It will be victory or death.

In the past week, Anthony Albanese, who narrowly lost to Shorten in Labor's leadership ballot in 2013, has suddenly been invigorated, jumping to his feet in the parliament and giving numerous interviews.

Not all the vultures are perched up in the parliamentary press gallery and beyond, sniffing the wind.

Paul Sheehan is a columnist and editorial writer for The Sydney Morning Herald, where he has has been Day Editor and Washington correspondent. He is the author of two number-one best-sellers, 'Girls Like You' and 'Among The Barbarians' and been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times and numerous anthologies.